What
do these illustrious Puerto Ricans have in common? Why, they are a very
special group of people. Each has been awarded the Presidential Medal
of Freedom.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest
civilian award, recognizes exceptional meritorious service. The medal
was established by President Truman in 1945 to recognize notable service
in the war. In 1963, President Kennedy reintroduced it as an honor for
distinguished civilian service in peacetime.

"2009 - In August Chita Rivera
was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama.

Born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero on January
23, 1933 in Washington, D.C., she is one of musical theater's most durable
personalities, Chita Rivera is revered as an actress, singer, and dancer,
who has broken barriers and inspired a generation of women. In 2002, she
was the first Hispanic to receive the Kennedy Center Honor.

Rivera has won 2 Tony Awards out of a total of 8 nominations
for her work in Broadway musicals. Was the first ever Latin-American to
receive the Kennedy Honors Award.

She has also won two Tony Awards
as Best Actress (Musical): in 1984 for "The Rink," and in 1993
for "Kiss of the Spider Woman--The Musical." And she has earned
six additional nominations: one as Best Supporting or Featured Actress
(Musical) in 1961 for "Bye, Bye Birdie;" four additional Best
Actress (Musical) entries, in 1976 for "Chicago," in 1981 for
"Bring Back Birdie," in 1983 for "Merlin," and in
1986 for "Jerry's Girls;" and one as Best Actress (Featured
Role - Musical) in 2003 for "Nine The Musical!" This is a total
of eight nominations, making her the most nominated actress in Tony history.

Rivera originated two roles on Broadway which would later
win Oscars for the actresses playing them in the film versions: Rita Moreno
in West Side Story (1961) and Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago.

Rivera was born to a Puerto Rican father, a clarinetist
and saxophonist for the United States Navy Band, and a mother of Scottish
and Italian descent.

2004 - Rita Moreno

President George W. Bush honored our very
own Rita Moreno with the Presidential Medal of Freedom
in 2004.

Rita Moreno has inspired many throughout
her celebrated career as an actress on screen and stage. Her performances
have been recognized with Grammy, Tony, and Emmy Awards, and she received
an Oscar in 1961 for her performance as Anita in West Side Story.

Rita Moreno is the only living female performer
to have won all four of the most prestigious show business awards: the
Oscar, the Emmy, the Tony and the Grammy. She has, in fact, been listed
in the Guinness Book of World Records for this achievement. Rita Moreno
earned the Oscar for the 1962 motion picture, West Side Story the two
Emmys for her 1977 appearance on The Muppet Show and for a guest appearance
on The Rockford Files in 1978 the Tony for her 1975 triumph on Broadway
in The Ritz and the Grammy for her 1972 performance on The Electric Company
Album for children. In 1995, Ms. Moreno received a star on The Hollywood
Walk of Fame.

Rita Moreno (Rosa Dolores Alverio) was born on December 11,
1931 in Humacao, a small town near the rain forest of Puerto Rico. At five,
she and her mother moved to New York and the following year she started
dancing lessons. At 13, she had her Broadway debut in Skydrift. Then, in
the true tradition of Hollywood, a talent scout arranged a meeting for the
17-year-old Miss Moreno with Louis B. Mayer and she was signed with MGM.

From that point on her career advanced steadily.Rita made some 30 films
early in her career, and was often typecast as a Mexican spitfire or and
Indian maiden. Among the films she make during this period were Untamed,
Seven Cities of Gold, The Lieutenant Wore Skirts, Garden of Evil and The
King and I. It was only after she won an Academy Award far her outstanding
performance as Anita in West Side Story that she was finally recognized
as a major talent. It may be said that in playing a wide variety of roles,
Rita Moreno broke the rigid role of Latino stereotyping.

Roberto Clemente Walker's pride and humanitarianism won him universal
admiration. Despite an unorthodox batting style, the Pirates' great won
four batting crowns and amassed 3,000 hits. He was equally brilliant in
right field, where he displayed a precise and powerful arm. Clemente earned
National League MVP honors in 1966, but achieved his greatest fame in
the 1971 World Series, when he batted .414. Tragically, Clemente's life
ended at age 38 — the victim of a plane crash while flying relief supplies
to Nicaraguan earthquake victims.

Roberto Clemente Walker was a Major League Baseball right
fielder and right-handed batter. He was elected to the Hall of Fame posthumously
in 1973, being the first Hispanic American to be selected, and the only
exception to the mandatory five-year post-retirement waiting period since
it was instituted in 1954.

B orn in Carolina, Puerto Rico, he was the youngest of four children.
Clemente played 18 seasons in the majors from 1955 to 1972, all with the
Pittsburgh Pirates, winning the NL MVP Award in 1966.

Clemente was a 4-time NL batting champion, finishing in
the top ten in batting average thirteen times. He finished his career
with exactly 3,000 hits, the last one coming on what would turn out to
be the last at-bat of his career on September 30, 1972 off Jon Matlack.
He was the 11th player in history to reach this number. He also had one
of the most powerful throwing arms of any outfielder in baseball history,
which contributed to him winning 12 Gold Glove Awards for his outstanding
defense. Perhaps Clemente's greatest feat was leading the Pittsburgh Pirates
to a seven-game World Series victory over the Baltimore Orioles in 1971.
He compiled a lifetime batting average of .317 and batted .300 or better
13 times, hitting 240 home runs.

A true "old-fashioned" hero, Clemente spent
much of his time during the off-season involved in charity work. He died
in a plane crash off the coast of Carolina on December 31, 1972 while
en route to deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.

Puerto Rico has honored Roberto Clemente's memory by naming
the coliseum in San Juan, Puerto Rico Coliseo Roberto Clemente. His native
city, Carolina, has a sports complex called "Ciudad Deportiva"
(Sports City). In Pittsburgh a bridge was named after him and the Pirates
retired his number 21. Meanwhile, MLB presents the Roberto Clemente Award
every year to the player who best follows Clemente's example with humanitarian
work. Several schools in the United States were named in his honor.

Did you know ... that Roberto Clemente earned 12 consecutive
Gold Glove Awards for his excellence in the outfield? There is a statue
of Clemente at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Roberto Clemente has
also been honored by the US Postal Service with two different postage
stamps (as of this writing).

In 1999,
Sister Isolina Ferré,
an advocate for the poor, was awarded the medal by President Clinton.

With her conviction that 'all people are equal in the
sight of God', Sister M. Isolina Ferre combined her deep religious faith
with her compassionate and creative advocacy for the disadvantaged. Through
the centers she founded in Puerto Rico and her work in New York City and
Appalachia, she empowered individuals and families by helping them recognize
their dignity and abilities. Emphasizing the value of education, self-reliance,
and meaningful employment, she helped young people realize their potential.
With her good heart and selfless spirit, Sister Isolina Ferre gave many
the gift of hope and the promise of a fulfilling future.

She was born in Ponce, a member of a wealthy family. However,
she was inclined towards becoming a Christian servant, and chose to represent
God among the people of the Earth instead. So she joined the (Order Of
The Missionary Women Of The Holiest Trinity) in 1935.

An excellent student, Ferré graduated various universities
in the United States, with grades in sociology and arts among other things.
She was awarded honorary doctorates from several educational institutes.
Sister Solina travelled back and forth between Puerto Rico and the Eastern
Coast of the states, and she absolutely loved trying to help the poor
who lived in the Eastern coast.

After a stint as a member of New York's committee against
poverty, to which she was named by then mayor John Lindsay, she decided
in 1969 to set her permanent residence in Ponce, specifically in the poor
sector of La Playa. Ferré's efforts in La Playa were written about
many different times, in Puerto Rican books and newspapers, as well as
in books from other Latin American countries.

Sister Isolina was responsible for opening a small hospital
and a school named (La Playa Orientation Center) in the area. It was her
dream to see that the people of La Playa improved their social and economical
status by studying and getting jobs, while living in a community with
adequate services.

1997
-Dr. Antonia Pantoja
( 'dare to dream ') was an educator and civic activist and was awarded
the prestigious medal in 1996 by President Clinton.

In 1997, Dr. Antonia Pantoja,
founder of ASPIRA and legendary for her role in the education and leadership
development of Puerto Rican Youth in the United States and Puerto Rico,
she received the highest honor the nation bestows on a civilian, the Presidential
Medal of Freedom.

Dra. Antonia Pantoja was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico
in 1922 and studied at the University of Puerto Rico where she obtained
a Normal School Diploma in 1942. Upon graduating from the University of
Puerto Rico, she worked as a schoolteacher for two years in Puerto Rico
where she cultivated a profound interest in education and addressing the
needs of disadvantaged children. She arrived in New York City in November
1944 where she got a job as a welder in a factory making lamps for children.
During these years which involved long hours of hard work,

Dra. Pantoja was awakened to the harsh experience of racism
and discrimination against Puerto Ricans and how this community lacked
the knowledge and political power to overcome these and other challenges
in the United States. She became an activist in the factory, providing
information to other workers about their rights and how to organize a
union. These were the most formative years of her life. But within a few
years, the women who welded pieces of filament for submarine radios would
rise to weld together a fragmented community, a community much in need
of leadership and vision.

After great personal initiative that included doing extensive
research on academic scholarships, Dra. Pantoja received a scholarship
from Hunter College, City University of New York, where she completed
a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1952. She went on to acquire a Master of
Social Work in 1954 and was bestowed a Ph.D. from the Union Graduate School,
Union on Experimenting Colleges and Universities in Yellow Springs, Ohio
in 1973.

Her most profound contribution to the Puerto Rican community
in the United States began in 1958 when she joined a group of young professionals
in creating the Puerto Rican Forum, Inc. which paved the way for the establishment
of ASPIRA in 1961. ASPIRA was Dra. Pantoja's dream, but it was not the
only organization she help build for the Puerto Rican community. In fact,
as early as 1953, Dra. Pantoja, then a graduate student at Columbia University,
joined a group of students and created the Hispanic Youth Adult Association
which later became the Puerto Rican Association for Community Affairs
(PRACA). In 1970 she wrote a proposal and secured funds to establish the
Universidad Boricua and the Puerto Rican Research and Resource Center
in Washington, DC and in 1973 became its Chancellor.

Her most notable contribution-the creation of ASPIRA-
in 1961 was the result of considerable hard work and collaboration with
educators and social work professionals who shared her concern with the
high dropout rate of Puerto Rican youth in New York City during the '50s
and '60s. The organization flourished into a major national organization
dedicated to empowering communities and especially Puerto Rican youth
to have a say in and control of their future.

1991
-Don Luis A. Ferré
(1904-2003), former island governor, was honored in 1991
by President George Bush. Don Luis was the brother of Presidential Medal
of Freedom Honoree, sister Solina Ferré.

Don Luis Alberto Ferré Aguayo (February 17, 1904
- October 21, 2003) was an engineer, industrialist, politician, philanthropist,
and a patron of the arts. He was the third democratically elected Governor
of Puerto Rico from 1969 to 1973, and the founding father of the New Progressive
Party which advocates for Puerto Rico becoming a state of the United States
of America.

Luis Antonio Ferré was born in the southern city
of Ponce, Puerto Rico on February 17, 1904. Ferre's father, was a Cuban
immigrant who founded the company "Puerto Rico Iron Works".
He studied Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, obtaining
his bachelor's degree in 1924 and masters degree in 1925, and music at
the New England Conservatory of Music. During this time, while living
in Boston, Ferré developed an admiration for the "American
way of democracy". Family History Ferre's father achieved fortune
under the help of the Serralles family founders of Don Q, which is considered
Puerto Rico's finest rum.

Upon his return to Puerto Rico, Ferré helped transform
his father's company into a successful business which earned him a fortune.
In 1948, he acquired "El Dia" a fledgling newspaper. "Empresas
Ferré" would later acquire in the 1950s, Puerto Rico Cement
and Ponce Cement, which capitalized in the economic boom which Puerto
Rico experienced at the time as the result of the ambitious industrialization
projects which came with Operation Bootstrap.

Ferré became active in politics in the 1940's.
He unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Ponce, Puerto Rico in 1940 and Resident
Commissioner of Puerto Rico in 1948. In the following election in 1968,
Ferré ran for Governor of Puerto Rico and won the election by a
slight margin. His victory marked the end of Luis Muñoz Marín's
Popular Democratic Party hold on the governor's seat which lasted 28 years.
Luis A. Ferré governed from 1969 to 1972. His work as governor
of Puerto Rico included defending the federal minimum wage and granting
workers a Chrismas bonus. He visited Puerto Rican troops in Vietnam. In
1972 he sought re-election for governor of Puerto Rico, but lost to Rafael
Hernández Colón (PPD). In 1976, he was elected into the
Puerto Rican Senate. Ferré served as president of the Senate on
from 1976-1980 and continued serving as senator until 1985.

After serving as governor, Ferré continued to be
active in politics, especially representing the United States Republican
Party on the island. In 1991, Ferré participated in Congressional
hearings in the United States House of Representatives which discussed
Puerto Rico's political status.

Ferré was also a talented pianist who recorded
several albums of his piano music. On January 3, 1949 he founded the Ponce
Museum of Art, in his hometown of Ponce, Puerto Rico. The museum initially
displayed 71 paintings from his personal collection and today displays
over 500 and hundreds of other works. "El Centro de Bellas Artes",
the center for performing arts in San Juan, Puerto Rico also bears his
name as well as the freeway connecting San Juan, Puerto Rico and Ponce,
Puerto Rico. He also assisted in the creation of the Casals Festival y
Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music.

1963
- Pablo Casals
The first Puerto Rican to be honored was world-renowned cellist Pablo
Casals, who was born in Spain to a Puerto Rican mother. He lived in Puerto
Rico until his death in 1973. Casals was selected by President Kennedy
and received his medal in 1963.

Pablo Casals (Pau Casals i Defilló), (December
29, 1876 -October 22, 1973), was a virtuoso Catalan/Puerto Rican cello
player (and later conductor). He made many recordings throughout his career,
of solo, chamber, and orchestral music, also as conductor, but Casals
is best remembered for the recording of Bach's Cello suites he made from
1936 to 1939.

Casals was born in El Vendrell, Catalonia. His father,
a parish organist and choirmaster, gave Casals instruction in piano, violin,
and organ. When Casals was 11, he first heard the cello performed by a
group of traveling musicians, and decided to dedicate himself to the instrument.
In 1888 his mother, Pilar Defillo de Casals, who was born in Puerto Rico
of Catalonian ancestry, took him to Barcelona, where he enrolled in the
Escuela Municipal de Música. There he studied cello, theory, and
piano. He made prodigious progress as a cellist; on February 23, 1891
he gave a solo recital in Barcelona at the age of 14. He graduated from
the Escuela with honors two years later.

Casals was also a composer; perhaps his most effective
work is La sardana, for an ensemble of cellos, which he composed in 1926.
His oratorio El pessebre (The Manger) was performed for the first time
in Acapulco, Mexico, on December 17, 1960. One of his last compositions
was the Himno a las Naciones Unidas (Hymn of the United Nations); he conducted
its first performance in a special concert at the United Nations on October
24, 1971, 2 months before his 95th birthday.

Casals wrote a memoir, Joys and Sorrows; Reflections (1973)

Casals died in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the age of 96.
He did not live to see the end of the Franco regime, but he was posthumously
honored by the Spanish government under King Juan Carlos I, which issued
in 1976 a commemorative postage stamp in honor of his 100th birthday.

1963
- Luis Muñoz Marín

Don Luis Muñoz Marín
(1898–- 1980,), the 'Father of Puerto Rico,' was honored also in
1963, by President Lyndon B. Johnson with the Presidential Medal
of Freedom.

Muñoz Marín was a Puerto Rican political
leader, governor of Puerto Rico (1949–- 65). He abandoned a career
as poet and journalist in New York City to enter Puerto Rican politics.
In 1938 he organized and headed the Popular Democratic party, campaigned
vigorously for social and economic reform, and edited La Democracia, a
San Juan daily founded by his father, Luis Muñoz Rivera. The slogan
'Bread, land, and liberty”' won a large following among the poor.
In 1948 he won the first free popular election for the governorship of
Puerto Rico, and he was reelected in 1952 and 1956. A resourceful and
energetic supporter of Commonwealth status for the island, he brought
about the 1952 decision that proclaimed Puerto Rico an Associated Free
State. In 1960 his election was opposed by the Roman Catholic Church in
Puerto Rico, which denounced him for advocating the teaching of birth
control; he was easily reelected despite the opposition. He consistently
championed economic expansion in close cooperation with the United States.
He did not run for reelection in 1964.

Don Luis is one of a few Puerto Ricans that have been
honored with a US Postal Service Stamp.